The document discusses major developments in music from the 20th century onward. It covers the impact of technology like sound recording, broadcasting, and electronic instruments. Magnetic tape recording improved sound quality and allowed for multi-track recording. Television and synthesizers also influenced music. The digital revolution of the 1970s enabled unlimited reproduction and new instruments. Folk music traditions influenced composers and genres like jazz. Twentieth century music was characterized by fragmentation and new sounds as tonality was abandoned.

1. Unit 17
MUSICAL LIFE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
AND BEYOND
Chapter 36
The Twentieth Century and Beyond
•Music (1884 definition): That one of the fine
arts which is concerned with the combination of
sounds with a view to beauty of form and the
expression of emotion; also, the science of the
law as or principles (of
melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.) by which this art
is regulated.
•Music (1999 definition) Sounds, usually
produced by instruments or voices, that are
arranged or played in order to create a pleasing

2. Music and Technology
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Sound recording to internet
Impact on every aspect of music
Electrical Revolution of 1920’s
Refined equipment making possible the
conversion of sound into an electrical
signal
• First Commercial broadcast in US –
11/02/1920 KDKA Pittsburgh station
• RCA and NBC
• 1927 “Talking films” The Jazz Singer

3. • Early electronic instruments
• 1919 – Léon Theremin, Russian inventor
The Theremin – performers don’t actually
touch the instrument, but move hands in
relation to the antennae
1930’s Hammond Organ
Rickenbaker solid-body steel guitar
Gibson and Fender guitars
First amplified instrument commonly used
was electric guitar

4. • Magnetic Tape Recording
• Length of a recording jumped from
three or four minutes on a 78 rpm
disc to thirty minutes or more
• Sound quality improved
• Composers used electronically
recorded sounds
• Multi-track recording

5. Television
• Exploded as a commercial enterprise after
WWII
• Ed Sullivan Show – Beatles and Elvis
• Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts
• Replaced radio as the all-purpose mass
medium

6. Synthesizers
• An instrument capable of generating
sounds electronically
• Mark II – very large and had to be
programmed
• Robert Moog – developed the
Minimoog, a portable synthesizer
designed for live performance
• Analog synthesizers - generated sound
by varying voltage (replaced by digital
instruments)

7. Digital Technology
• Digital Revolution began in 1970’s
• Unlimited reproduction of the original
sound source without deterioration
• Sampling – transfer of recorded sound
• MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital
Interface) enables communication
between digital instruments and devices
• Audio workstations and computer
software
• Sound editing and a host of digital
instruments have come from this

8. • We now live in a post-literate musical
world
• Notation software “writes” the music
• Ability to deliver audio over Internet
• Music grew into a massive business
during twentieth century.
• Emergence of popular music as the
dominant commercial force in musical
life

9. Folk Traditions
• Hungarian Composers Béla Bartók and
Zoltan Kodály
• Traveled throughout Hungary collecting
the songs and dances of peasants in
rural areas
• Ethnomusicology- the study of music
within particular cultures
• Jazz is profoundly influenced by folk
traditions
• Jazz became “America’s Art Music”

10. Twentieth Century Music
• Fragmentation, not continuity
• New instruments and new vocal and
instrumental sounds
• Broader understanding of “Musical”
sound
• Atonality – the principle of avoiding both
the tonic and its corollary
• What seems normal today was
revolutionary at mid-century and
unimaginable at the beginning of the
twentieth century